Oscar Wilde: The Rise & Fall of the 20th Century’s First Pop Celebrity

‘He had a musician’s sense of a sentence.’

111 years ago today, the world lost the great Oscar Wilde — poet, playwright, action figure. This fascinating 1997 documentary from Omnibus traces Wilde’s life, loves, and legacy, from his intellectual upbringing to his infamous imprisonment at the height of his fame and success for “for gross indecency with other men” — basically, for being gay and out in Victorian England — to his exile and untimely death. The film features cameos from Stephen Fry, who played Wilde in the film of the same title, Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant, and prolific British playwright Tom Stoppard, who explore what made Wilde the 20th century’s first true pop celebrity.

He had perfect pitch, perfect touch. He had a musician’s sense of a sentence.”

[Prison] was where Oscar discovered that life does not imitate art, and that the reality of a prison sentence was miles away from the ivory towers of martyrdom he had previously assumed it to be.”

For a proper Oscar Wilde remembrance, you won’t go wrong with The Happy Prince and Other Tales and, of course, The Importance of Being Earnest. (Which, for some almost sacrilegious reason, is going for just $1.50, it seems.)

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25 Celebrated Saul Bass Title Sequences in 100 seconds

Supercutting the visual legacy of the greatest graphic designer of all time.

To celebrate the release of the highly anticipated and altogether fantastic Saul Bass monograph, one of the 11 best art and design books of 2011 and among the most important design books ever published, Art of the Title editor Ian Albinson put together this brilliant brief visual history of Bass’s most celebrated work, which influenced generations of designers, animators, and visual storytellers alike.

The featured films, in order:

Carmen Jones (1954)
The Big Knife (1955)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
Vertigo (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
North by Northwest (1959)
Spartacus (1960)
Psycho (1960)
Ocean’s Eleven (1960)
West Side Story (1961)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963)
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
Seconds (1966)
Not with My Wife, You Don’t! (1966)
Grand Prix (1966)
That’s Entertainment, Part II (1976)
The War of the Roses (1989)
Goodfellas (1990)
Cape Fear (1991)
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Casino (1995)

On a related note, don’t forget this wonderful 2-minute history of film title sequence design.

via Doobybrain

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Charade: Lessons in Creative Vision from a 1984 College Student

What Goethe has to do with pioneering animation.

In the summer of 1984, Sheridan College student Jon Minnis set out to complete an ambitious project, armed with only PANTONE markers and paper. (Cue in this morning’s PANTONE history of the 20th century.) After four months of writing and polishing a clever script, he spent another three meticulously storyboarding and animating it into an elegant, minimalist 4-minute film titled Charade, which Minnis voiced himself.

The gem went on to win the 1985 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film and remains a heartening example of dreaming up a project and bringing it single-handedly to life. Or, as Goethe almost put it:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin It! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Charade is available on the altogether excellent 1994 collection World’s Greatest Animation, featuring Academy Award winners and nominees from the years 1978-1991.

via Animation Graduate Films; thanks for the quote, Liz

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